phillip capper writes
>I have been reflecting on diane's actor/'reality comments.
how brave of you! ha ha. i'm an intellectual terrorist, didn't you know? ;)
>
>
>It feels to me that the question at the core of all this concerns
>motivation. Is it not in the nature of man as a social being to want to
>belong, and therefore to figure out which parts of 'my own self' I am
>prepared to make subservient to my need to belong?
oiy! yes! it IS about motivation (thank you mary bryson!) and it is about
this conflict between
desire and demand - wanting to explore alternatives, and wanting to be
accepted by the dominant collective.
i have never accepted the idea that it is "natural" to seek community - so
much as i recognize the desire to be validated, identified, recognized as
particular. being a drone or a cog is *not* an ideal of any human
activity, of this i'm sure. it is in the different ways we can contribute
to difference - an antinomy to community, really.
but then, it was Iris Marion Young who indicated the ways the ideal of
"community" appeal to an historical ideal of a particular masculine
perspective that seeks affirmation, not expansion.
(in "Feminist Theorise the Political," 1992?, edited by Joan Scott and
Judith Butler, possibly one of the most important anthologies of
intellectual essays in the 20th century)
>And then, as I move
>between contexts the answer to that question alters. Do I thereby become
>an
>'actor' in the true metaphorical sense of the theatre? Or is this just the
>human (social) condition? It seems to me that diane's point is merely one
>way of thinking about the nature of multivoicedness in AS's, and also a
>way
>of understanding the nature of contradictions. surely whenever I go into
>any
>social setting anywhere I take the time:
>
>"To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet."
i think it's dangerous to assign value to theatre -
the theatrics of sociality: they ARE.
i ARE social, plural, as surely as i'm dedicated to particular activities
that maintain me as singular with this plurality of social lives.
it is not "one way of thinking about the nature of multivoicedness in ASs"
-
but a recognition that any time a collection of people are engaged in
allegedly shared activity,
there are multiple activities taking place in contexts of rehearsals,
performance,
wanting to be loved/liked; re-enacting histories of affections or abuse,
or neglect, or loss,
- no one seeks hatred, or isolation: RATHER, there are some who are
"motivated" towards that as an alternative to whatever doesn't work in the
social realm. the seduction of familiarity produces a lot of variation in
personality, and any AT is comprised of this "theatre" of personalities
who "act" in these particular social realms.
It seems to me, cynic that i are, that
AT, ideally, studies conformity. normalcy.
CHAT universalizes conformity, normalcy, and it is dissention that is
"othered" -
this is the base of my concern,
that while social life is a theatric of social habits, rehearsals,
improvisations,
it eclipses "self" in
that an ideal of a collective eliminates the value of difference.
however difficult it may be to understand, difference is as universal as
conservative participation. there are no social-models that can account
for difference or dissension
.
collective ideals are certainly very powerful, very righteous.
individual perspectives are, in these contexts, easily undone,
pathologized, and so on.
thus, difference remains the object of exception, instead of normalcy -
maybe the exceptional behaviour is "conformity?" is it normal to "follow"
the crowd?" isn't this the pathology? the absence of individual or
personal perspective/interpretation?
>
>
>I am not at all convinced that this means that I am not being to my own
>self
>true. I am making a valuation of what my own interest is. To be sure, I
>have
>to confront the implications of my choices because, to return to Eliot:
>
>"There is, it seems to us,
>At best, only a limited value
>In the knowledge derived from experience.
>The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies,
>For the pattern is new in every moment
>And every moment is a new and shocking
>Valuation of all we have been. "
to be true to oneself is, in my history, and experience, and research,
writing,
excruciating. it is specifically contradictory to the academic experience,
which swells on right-ness and calculated humilities.
to be truly vulnerable, aah. it is not academic to be vulnerable. but the
truth is, we are all vulnerable.
phillips, thanks so much for that excerpt from Eliot - really. it poses
the deeper complexities of these questions about the researcher, and the
researcher's desires in researching.
it's not an absolute, it's an ongoing process of "giving up" and learning,
for all aspects.
it is in the" [v]aluation of all we have been," i think, that academic
researchers are likely to stutter, to "believe" in the myth of
"re-creation" and "invention" and to believe in one's self as a novelty,
or innovator, is where the myths become practice - something the
university thrives on, certainly, institutional practice pre-exists us
all, and still endures and thrives through our practice.
there is "a limited value derived from experience" but by the same token,
we can ask, who's experience? and can i know an other's experience by
their telling me? can i theorize from that? is that experience? or the
theatre of disclosure - in this "age of Oprah" , so to speak,
and as Nancy Fraser has written, the "confessional" has become terribly
convenient, not progressive, but tactical.
>As for social change - could we not understand social change as occurring
>when the big contradictions in a system create such discomfort in the
>members of the system with the majkss they are wearing that they come to
>surface their 'real' inner selves and collectively develop a motive to
>pursue greater congruity between their inner selves and their social
>selves?
the possibility of this happening in any heavily Westernized nation is
unlikely - media plays such a profound role in shaping perspective, to the
point that those who are shaped are unaware that they've been seduced,
configured, manipulated, and so on,
it' takes a lot of work to isolate - individuate from the dominant genre
of Western culture - not to say "people" are idiots, but that there is
little offered to reward difference and intellectualism.
phillip, thanks so much for offering credence to my thoughts.
much obliged, dunno where it leads, but i'd hope for more questions,
because NOTHING is self-evident,
diane
>
>Phillip Capper
>WEB Research
>PO Box 2855
>(Level 9, 142 Featherston Street)
>Wellington
>New Zealand
>
>Ph: (64) 4 499 8140
>Fx: (64) 4 499 8395
>
>
"Life could be a dream, sh-boom, if i could take you up to paradise above,
sh-boom and tell you that you are the only one that i love,
life could be a dream sweeheart,
sh-lang-a-lang-a-lang-a-lang,
life could be a dream, sweetheart..."
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